


i bring you close (never wanting to let you go)

by LiveLaughLovex



Series: we'll give you everything we have (we'll teach you everything we know) [3]
Category: The Code (TV 2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Doctors, Alternate Universe - Hospital, Babies, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:27:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26154961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LiveLaughLovex/pseuds/LiveLaughLovex
Summary: Abe and Harper introduce their daughters to their baby brother.
Relationships: John "Abe" Abraham/Harper Li
Series: we'll give you everything we have (we'll teach you everything we know) [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1899265
Kudos: 3





	i bring you close (never wanting to let you go)

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from "This is Home," by Bryan Lanning.

“Daddy!” Lyla called loudly, toddling down the hall as quick as her two-year-old legs could carry her and practically throwing herself into the waiting arms of her father. “Missed you!”

“Hiya, sunshine,” Abe greeted, hefting his younger daughter into his arms and balancing her against his hip. “I missed you, too. Hi, Miss Ruby,” he added to his oldest, smiling as the little girl wrapped her arms as best she could around his waist for an embrace. He returned it as best he could with another child in his arms. “How’re you doing, kiddo?”

Ruby pulled back to beam up at him. “Auntie Maya let us watch _Frozen 2_ and eat popcorn and candy last night.”

“She did, did she?” Abe glanced up at his friend, shaking his head in fake reproach. “Hey, kiddo, exactly how much candy are we talking, here?”

“Just the right amount for girls already so sweet,” Maya answered for his daughter. “Right, girls?”

Both Ruby and Lyla nodded immediately, and Abe had to fight back laughter at the sight. “Okay, well, I guess if it was just the right amount, that’s okay,” he sighed a moment later, amused. “You had fun with Aunt Maya, huh?”

“We watched movies and colored and read five _whole_ stories, Daddy,” Ruby informed him happily.

“Five _whole_ stories, huh?” he repeated, smiling down at the little girl. “Sounds like you two had a good time.”

“We did,” Ruby promised, tugging on his hand. “Daddy, I want to see the baby now.”

“Baby,” Lyla agreed seriously, wrapping her arm around her father’s neck. “Want to see baby.”

“Okay, well, since we’re all in agreement. Thanks, May. You want to come see him, too?” he offered, nodding in the direction of Harper’s room down the hall.

The pediatric surgeon shook her head. “No, this should just be the five of you. I’ll come see him later. Congratulations, Dad. Appreciate it before you’re ready to fall over. And when you are, feel free to call me and Uncle Max. We’ve got a few more Disney movies in our repertoire. Bye, kiddos,” she added to the girls. “Say hi to your baby brother for me, okay?”

“Okay!” Ruby agreed easily. “Bye, Aunt Maya.”

“Bye, May!” Lyla added loudly, causing both adults to wince at the sheer volume of it. The two-year-old lifted a hand in farewell, waving goodbye to her godmother as she made her way through the two doors at the end of the hallway.

“Alright,” Abe said, shifting Lyla in his arms and taking Ruby’s hand. “Let’s go meet your baby brother.”

Harper was propped up in the bed when the three entered, their son bundled in a striped blanket and snuggled against her chest. She glanced up when the door opened and then closed behind them. “Hey, my girls,” she greeted quietly, smiling as Abe set Lyla down on the floor to allow both their daughters to try – and fail – to quietly make their way to their mother’s bedside. “Did you have fun with Auntie Maya and Uncle Max?”

Ruby nodded, offering her mother the same play-by-play she’d offered her father in the hallway, then drew closer to the bed, standing on her tiptoes in an attempt to catch a glimpse of the tiny little person sleeping in her mother’s arms. “That’s him?” she checked, glancing between her parents. “James?”

“This is James,” Harper confirmed, waiting for Abe to gently lift both girls onto the bed before shifting her youngest in her arms so that his two older sisters could get a look at him. “James, buddy, these are your sisters,” she informed her son, smiling as he blinked up at her with the same bright blue eyes of his father and both his sisters.

“He’s so little,” Ruby marveled, reaching out a single finger and smiling when her brother immediately grasped it in his tiny fist. “He’s supposed to be this little, right, Mommy?”

“He’s supposed to be this little,” Harper confirmed, smiling at her daughter’s concern. “You and Lyla were both littler, you know?”

“We _were_?” Ruby asked, aghast at the very idea.

“You were,” Abe told her, standing at his wife’s bedside, one hand braced against Lyla’s back to keep her from falling onto the floor, face first.

“I like him,” Lyla announced definitively, brushing her little hand against James’ dark hair. “Hiya, baby brother. Does he like me, Mama?”

Harper smiled as James tried to tilt his head back to stare at his older sister. “Yeah, kiddo,” she promised her daughter. “He likes you, too.”

Abe stood back for a moment, watching as his daughters talked animatedly to their mother and their brother and the stuffed animals that’d been dropped off throughout the morning, assigning them all names and introducing them to their new baby brother and insisting he was going to be their “ _bestest friend ever, we just know it_ ,” (that was Ruby, of course), and, in that moment, he found himself realizing it was that moment, right there, he’d spent all those months in Afghanistan fighting for.

And, as Harper glanced up from their children and offered him that warm grin of hers – the same one that’d made him fall in love with her from across a hospital lobby eight years earlier – he knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that that moment in time was worth that fight and a thousand more.

**Author's Note:**

> And, because I came up with them but didn't fit them in: Lyla's middle name is Mary (which I chose because of Mary Edwards Walker, but Abe and Harper definitely chose because it's a family name) and James' is Russell, after Abe's father. James' first name actually comes from James Vedder, who was awarded the Silver Star for his service at Iwo Jima during World War II. He was attached to the Fifth Marine Division and worked as a medic. 
> 
> (Do I put too much thought into these? Yes, definitely. But names are my favorite thing about these stories, so... *shrugs*.)


End file.
